69% of Obama’s Itemized Donors Started with a Small Contribution; Obama’s Itemized Donors Averaged More than Five Contributions Each

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The Campaign Finance Institute today is releasing its analysis of President Barack Obama’s and Gov. Mitt Romney’s fundraising through the two candidates’ post-election reports filed December 2012.
The analysis strengthens the impression of an election in which the Obama campaign used fundraising as tool for money and mobilization, while for the Romney campaign it was just about money.

President Obama’s campaign committee raised $782 million in 2011-12
(see attached Table 1). This was slightly more than the $746 million it raised for the
full 2008 campaign cycle. Gov. Romney’s committee raised $494 million
(Table 1). However, the candidates’ dollars were more closely matched ($1.1 billion to $1.0 billion) when you
add in all of the money raised by their joint fundraising committees and the two national party committees
(Table 2).

Despite their bottom lines, the candidates had different fundraising bases
(Table 3). The Obama campaign raised 28% of its individual contributions ($216 million) from donors who gave $200 or
less cumulatively, compared to 12% ($57 million) for the Romney campaign. At the higher end, the Obama campaign raised 39% of its money from donors who gave $1,000 or more (down from 44% in 2008),
compared to 66% for the Romney campaign. (See Table 4 for 2008 comparisons.)

But the Obama’s campaign’s fundraising strategy was not just about dollars. The campaign had remarkable success in turning donors into repeat donors and volunteers – the kind of people
who would fuel the voter mobilization drives that were crucial for reelection
(Table 5). Obama reportedly had about 4.4 million unique donors in 2011-12. Of these, about 814,000 gave more
than $200 and therefore were included among the itemized donors in the candidate’s FEC filings. But when we look at the itemized doors, we are not seeing people who just wrote one or two big checks.

An amazing 69% (558,000) of the itemized donors started out by giving an undisclosed contribution of $200 or less. They only crossed the disclosure threshold after one or more repeat contributions. They started as small donors and then became activated to give more.

Obama’s itemized donors made an average of 5 itemized contributions per donor in 2011-12 (not counting unitemized contributions). (The comparable number for Romney was 2.26 donations per donor.) Obama’s typical itemized donor not only came back, but came back often.

As noted, the Romney campaign raised as much as Obama’s once you count joint fundraising committee and party money – and more if you count allied Super PACs. But the fundraising did little to mobilize. In addition, because much of the money for Romney went around the campaign committee, it was not worth as much. Political parties cannot take advantage of advertising price discounts (lowest unit rate costs) that are available only to candidates. And independent spending committees could not coordinate efficiently with the candidates in ground mobilization efforts. In these and other ways, the two campaigns’ spending patterns showed that not all dollars are created equal. Obama’s fundraising was part of a well-integrated campaign. Romney’s seemed more like a thing apart, as most fundraising once was. President Obama not only raised money more times from more people. He was able to spend the money he had more efficiently because of the way he raised it.

TablesTable 1. Receipts, Debts and Cash for 2012 Presidential Candidates, through November 26th

Table 2. Presidential, National Party, and Joint Committee Fundraising, through November 26th

Table 3. Individual Contributions Aggregated per Donor, through November 26th

Table 5. Presidential Donors in 2008 and 2012 – Itemized Donors who Started Small

The Campaign Finance Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute. Statements of the Campaign Finance Institute and its Task Forces do not necessarily reflect the views of CFI's Trustees or financial supporters.